Schwab (SCHW) Drop Trading Fees

By Paul Ausick of 24/7 Wall St.

Charles Schwab Corporation (NASDAQ:SCHW) has announced that it will drop its online equity trade commissions for retail investors from $12.95/trade to $8.95/trade beginning January 19, 2010. Some other prices were also lowered, and Schwab now charges all retail clients the same fees regardless of whether the account is larger than $1 million or on the number of trades made in a year.

This move will certainly put some serious pressure on other online brokers. E*Trade (NASDAQ:ETFC) charges $7.99-$9.99 for equity trades, and TD Ameritrade (NASDAQ:AMTD) advertises online trades at $9.99. Schwab’s third-quarter 2009 cash balance topped $25 billion, compared with $7.5 billion for E*Trade and $6.6 billion at TD Ameritrade.

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